Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1) (9 page)

Riley hesitantly watched Ericca’s grin spread into a
full-blown devious smile. He trusted her completely, but seeing that smile
always made him nervous.
Okay, so she has an idea
—
now what?

“Program a couple of rockets, little brother.”

Rockets?
He relaxed his grip and released his long-held
breath. Rockets he understood. “Two rockets? So what’s your idea?”

The malicious intent filling her eyes to the brim overflowed
into her words. For Riley the fear factor reached a new level. “I want this
fleet blind for at least thirty seconds,” she said. “You got a rocket for
that?”

“Um, sure . . . I think. On the first, you want a,
let’s see
, a neutron warhead perhaps. Right! Can do.”

“And next, I want a Helio trail leading out of the nebula.”

“Ah, cool.” Riley chuckled. “A disintegrating Helio rocket
should do the trick. It’ll leave a trail, then vanish without a trace once it’s
run its course.”

“That’s what I want.”

Riley cocked his head. “Direction?”

“Your choice, little bro.”

“Roger, Captain. Ready in thirty seconds.” Riley had a vague
idea of what she planned, but Ericca was a tricky one. He programmed the rockets
as fast as he was able.

“Set and ready, Captain.”

“Fire when ready, Archer.”

He let the Neutron rocket fly and as it arched around back
toward the enemy fleet Ericca brought
Viper
around.

Favoom!

When the rocket exploded, Riley let the second rocket fly.

Ericca quickly came around and pulled in tight to the last
ship in the fleet. “There’s a lovely spot.” She took
Viper
in, landed on
the deck near the conning tower, and attached the ship into place. Tabbing
specific buttons on her console.
Viper’s
color holographically blended
with the ship it now clung to. Ericca and Riley were now safely hidden in plain
sight.

“We’ll stay with the Confeds as long as doing so make
sense,” she said.

The Neutron explosion dissipated and the Talons that had
been chasing them held to
Viper’s
last known course.

With the stick out of the nest the hornets, in time, settled
down to reenter the hive. A few hours passed before the fleet finally picked up
Riley’s Helio-rocket trail and started to move on it. They followed the faint
Helio-energy signature out of the Nebula, past Hawthorn, and as far as they
could before the plasma trail faded to nothing. Like hounds that had just lost
the scent of a clever Raccoon, the whole fleet slowed down.

After a while the fleet altered direction and resumed its
speed. “They’ve given up the search, sis,” Riley said studied its course.
“Looks like they’re returning to their prior mission and, hmm, Joshua’s
suspicions were right. They’re tracking
Freefall
sure enough.”

Ericca sighed, then peered back over her headrest. “We stay
put, Archer. We’ll report back to
Freefall
when we know more.”

Riley nodded. “I can’t believe Josh, though. On every point
he was dead on right. The way his mind works is . . .”

Ericca nodded. “I’m just glad he’s on our side. If we had
that kind of genius pitted against us, we wouldn’t last long.”

Riley ran his hand over the leather armrest, and glanced at
his instruments. “Race is something else, too, isn’t she? It’s as if she read
my mind in rebuilding this ship. Man, we have it good.”

Ericca nodded. “What do you say we grab a bite then go for a
stroll?”

“I’m up for a burger, sis. But about that walk—just what did
you have in mind?”

“Gremlins, Archer. Nasty little gremlins.”

“Sorry?”

The deviousness in her eyes returned. “You know? Those
annoying little saboteurs that cause unexplained problems with ships and such.”

Riley grinned. “You want to monkey with this ship, don’t
you? Like, make it mysteriously fail at the most inopportune time?”

“Now you’re catching on,
Mr.
Widget.” Her voice rang
with mischief.

Riley understood her villainous tone. This was one of those
rare occasions where being a prankster was actually a good thing, and he was
not one to miss out on such an opportunity. “So,
Miss
Fifinella, are you
up for a burger, or shall I throw in a slice of pizza?”

“Burger, please. With all the trimmings. Pass one up here
when it’s ready.”

Riley worked fast to build the burgers. He only had to heat
the meat and slip it between readymade buns with all the trimmings. As they
ate, he discreetly scanned their host ship. His target had to be something the
cruiser would need in the heat of battle, but not something the ship would use
under normal space flight. This would be tricky, because military ships
routinely ran diagnostics on every system. If he and Ericca sliced partway
through a power cord, their doing so would still have to allow enough energy to
flow through it to make the diagnostic say it was still fully functional. To Riley’s
glee, there were a great number of targets throughout the ship. But then, the
more the targets, the greater the hunt to find the best one. “I need your help,
Ericca.”

“Sure. Transfer a schematic to my viewer, and I’ll work on
it as you work on yours.”

Unlike her brother, who had wolfed down his burger in short
order, Ericca was still working on hers, taking little bites as she studied her
screen, and that didn’t escape Archer’s notice. Or goodness sake, they weren’t
at the table.

“You’re a tough girl, Ericca.”

She stopped and cocked an ear toward him. “Uh, thanks, I
guess.”

“For a tough girl, you certainly take delicate bites. I know
why you do that at a proper table, but why here? Who’ll see?”

“Working in the tavern I learned to take huge bites and
speak with food in my mouth. That didn’t float at the Blackhart mansion, so,
among other things, one of the girl pages there taught me how to eat more like
a refined young lady.”

Riley chuckled and shook his head. “Done right, sis, talking
past the food in your mouth is considered an art form in many cultures.”

“So is belching.”

“I know. I know. Mrs. Kori argues against such behavior, and
fervently so.”

“Yes, so how’s that working out for you, Archer, her trying
to make a fine young lady out of you?”

Riley chuckled at her joke.

Fact was, getting Ericca to eat daintily—
to take small
bites and chew thoroughly
—was the only thing mansion life had managed to
get Ericca to learn. Everything else was a battle. Well-worn leather, gun slung
low, knife in her boot, and tromping like a boy wherever she went were things Ericca
just wasn’t willing to give up.

Seeing
that
, Mrs. Mara had said that the right man
would change all that.

Ericca had countered with, ‘The right man would appreciate
those features about her more than anything else.’ Girls, as a rule, had no
sense of adventure. And
dainty
just wasn’t Ericca Archer.

No
,
it wasn’t
, thought Riley. Her working the
stables with him was what she seemed most suited to. Why Tyson Blackhart
brought her into the mansion left folks guessing. But Riley believed he knew
the man and the reasons he did what he did. Saundler, Tyson’s father, could be
a touchy feely letch at times. Under Tyson’s orders, Skuppers, the stable
foreman, hid Ericca whenever the old man came around. Maybe Tyson brought her
into the big house to keep her off Saundler’s radar. In that case, the closer
to danger she was, the further from harm she’d be. In the house, she could work
in those rooms where Saundler never went.

Riley liked Tyson. Everyone did. As far as a slave-owner
went, he was the best, always and forever treating his property,
so-called
,
like human beings, employees even . . . never as pieces of śmieci.

Sitting long hours in
Viper
, Riley grew weary.

“I’m in the mood to lay back and relax a bit. How about you,
skipper?”

“Sure; I’m game,” his sister said.

There are certain advantages to space travel. In a
weightless environment, one didn’t have to elevate one’s feet, but simply hit a
switch to change the direction of gravity’s pull; in this case, “Synthe-grav.”
Once the preferred synthetic angle was tabbed it, sleep would come easy. Ericca
adjusted the grav-control to make them feel as if they were lying back with
their legs elevated.

“
Viper
,” she said, “if we doze off, wake us after an
hour’s sleep, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,”
Viper
replied.

She’s no fool
, thought Riley. She knew as much as he
that if you feed a teen, then have him bury his face in a technical schematic,
you could count on him soon dozing off. They had plenty of time though; these
large lumbering Confederate ships weren’t big on speed. And besides, Ericca
caused so much damage to the carrier; it needed down time to effect repairs.
And the added delay would work to the rebel’s advantage.

Riley figured that, as more and more damage reports came in,
the Captain of the carrier, along with the fleet admiral, would grow angrier
with each passing hour. An admiral
that
angry would be focused on the
chase—on catching the vandals he believed had made a run for it. He wouldn’t
dream that they peacefully snoozed right under his nose. Who in this universe
would have that much brass?

“Archer, what can you tell me about Jordon Kori. You talked
to Mara. The subject ever come up?”

“Yes. We’ve talked.”

“So?”

“Jordon is a scientist. He’s gifted. In fact so much so that
Mrs. Kori says other brilliant minds can’t even begin to understand his
creations. He was like that as a boy, a prodigy, she said. Others want to reverse
engineer his stuff. God knows they’ve tried. But Mrs. Kori says Jordon thinks
on a completely different level than anyone else.”

Ericca’s brows leveled. “Okaaay?”

“Gadgets he understands. People, not so much. You’ve seen
how nervous he can get. But you put that man in a costume, and give him a roll
to play, Mrs. Kori says he blossoms.”

“Really?”

“She says that he, in costume, can be sweet and charming and
confident. From what she told me, if he had faced those inspectors out of
costume, he would have crumbled into a nervous mess huddled in a corner
somewhere.”

“I . . . wow, I didn’t know.”

“Thing is, around you, it doesn’t matter. In costume or out,
Mrs. Kori says you make him nervous. It shows.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“Just go easy on him, okay?”

“May I ask . . . umm?”

“What?”

“If he’s so nervous around people, how did he ever make it to
adulthood?”

Riley smiled slyly. “Mrs. Kori said he usually meets people
at a costume parties. He once dressed up as a prince. Every girl at the party
wanted him. Mrs. Kori said that he had his choice of women that night, but he
had chosen to go home alone. When she pressed him, he only shrugged and said
none of them where the girl in his dreams . . . whatever that means.”

“Now he’s alone, poor guy.”

“Sure.
Now
he’s alone,” Riley said before yawning.
“But Mr. Kori seems happy enough. He’s got his gadgets and gizmos, enough
said?”

“What’s he after, a beauty queen? How can a nervous, geeky
guy like him ever land an attractive woman?”

Riley hesitated and scratched his head to gather his
thoughts. “Some things are best left unsaid, Ericca. But I will tell you this;
some people can see beyond skin’s surface. If you want to know more, you’ll
have to ask him.”

Ericca nodded. “Okay.”

“I could use a good power-nap, sis. Wake me in a day or two,
will you?”

In time,
Viper
roused the teens and Riley stretched
the stiffness from his muscles. Ericca did the same. They took another fresh
look at the schematic, and Riley checked the time.

In deep space, distant from any sun, there is no morning,
noon, or night. Time is relative, as is up, down, or what-have-you. Each ship’s
Captain would consider where they were going, the time of day it would be when
they got there, and adjust his ship’s chronometers accordingly. Aboard a
spaceship some days would be slightly longer or shorter depending on what time
it would be planet-side when they arrived.

Viper’s
clock was always set to
Freefall
time.
Riley saw no reason to call home now only to ruin a perfectly good night’s
sleep for Mr. and Mrs. Kori, so he turned his focus elsewhere.

Eventually Riley’s search for the perfect point of sabotage
paid off—
he thought
. He found a specific power junction-box of
particular interest, but there was something odd about it, something
disconcerting. Most of the ship’s key components merged right there, but there
was
something important to consider; it was rather deep inside the ship. He pointed
it out to Ericca.

She turned sharply and glared at him over her seat’s
headrest. “What are you, some kind of adrenalin junky? No way in blue blazes
are we going there; not when it’s that deep inside this thing.”

“Come on, sis,” he teased. “Don’t you want to stretch your
legs?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes, I want to stretch my legs,
but I also want to live to a ripe old age. You really want to climb that deep
into the belly of the beast?”

“We have a job to do, sis, and we’ll get little done if we
just sit here.”

She grunted and turned back to the schematic.

Hmm
, she thought,
a wire snipped here, a bomb
planted there . . . this just might work
. As junction boxes went,
this one wasn’t half bad. It beat the stuffing out of planting several bombs
throughout the ship. At least here, several of the ship’s systems could be
mucked with all at once. She glanced back at Riley. “Yeah, what the hey, let’s
go have some fun!”

Fun?
Riley grinned.
Finally. It sounds like she’s actually
getting her sense of fun back.
It wasn’t a bar fight, but still . . .

He was just about to turn the schematic off, when something
at its edge caught his eye. “What the—?” He zoomed out, and his jaw dropped.
“Ah, crap!”

“What?”

“Expand your view, sis. Look at the ship’s ‘J’ deck, the
whole thing.”

She did so and fell silent.

“This isn’t a tech ship, sis. It’s a weapon. The whole blasted
ship is one great big gun.”

Still Ericca said nothing.

“Look at that cavernous maw. It runs clear back to the tail.
Those nodes running its length; there must be hundreds.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this. What does it do?”

“I’m thinking, sis, it kills people. It looks as though it
was designed to take out an entire ship with one whack.”

“Require study?”

“It does. Give me a moment.”

This is what Riley lived for. Weapons of warfare were his
thing, and he had a mind built for figuring out how things like this actually
worked. If anybody could disable this monster, it’d have to be him. As easily
as someone lifting an arm, Riley pieced together all the varying components to
discover the true ability of the beast. “Sis, they’ve discovered how to
capture, contain, and stabilize Radical Ion plasma. That’s why they’re here.
The Prince is drawing it in slowly to charge cells that run the length of the
ship.”

“Can we blow them?”

“I don’t think we can. The fuel casings are a
Diridium-terinium alloy. We brought nothing with us that’ll breach that.”

“Can we cut the lines.”

“No. They feed straight into the activation chamber. I see
no way to stop or cut the feed. This in essence is an unstoppable weapon. And
sis, it’s mean.”

“Okay, so the plasma is injected into the chamber, then
what?”

“Look at the butt end of the chamber. See that probe? That’s
a tyridium trigger. Again, we don’t have the means to damage that. It ignites
the plasma, and as the fireball moves forward it collects and compresses more
plasma, igniting it as it goes, and what comes out the end is . . .
well, by any standard, mean. The rebels won’t stand a chance against this
thing.”

“No gun has limitless bullets, Archer. Can you calculate how
many shots these guys have before they run dry?”

“I can. Give me a moment.” Riley ran the numbers in his head.
Though he’d never seen this weapon before, he understood it in principle. That
was his strength. He loved guns and anything that went bang. “Seven shots.
Seven.”

She released air through her nose. “Right, then we’ll have
to get them to waist a few, right?”

“We could. But I’m looking at another tact that might work
for us. Come on, let’s go take a look at that junction box and see what we can
see. Who says a direct assault is best anyway.”

“Fine. Let’s do it.” Ericca checked the gun on her thigh,
popped the canopy, and they climbed out of
Viper
one after the other.
She reached back behind her seat to grab five small palm-sized explosives, put
them in her calf pockets, and turned to see that their path was clear.

Instead of normal spacesuits—the bulbous helmet and the
bulky, thick, tightly-woven cloth glued to rubber—Jordon Kori’s flight suits were
little more than air containment force fields similar to that enveloping a
spaceship. And to do away with those unwieldy oxygen tanks still used by most
of the universe, Jordon built a small, portable air-scrubber into each power-pack
utility belt.

The helmet, a thin, light phyocene-plastic alloy, was an
added power source to energize the suit should the belt batteries fail. Because
the force field could envelope anything,
even street clothes
, nothing
was needed beyond the helmet and belt. Nevertheless, the Archers wore gray
flight suits over their clothes anyway. Like a chameleon, the suit’s material
automatically changed color to blend into its surroundings. But to be
effective, this feature required them to wear the hood up. The wearer would be
difficult to see—
not completely invisible
—and in most cases that would
be enough to save his or her life.

Riley grabbed a satchel, loaded it with what he considered
necessary items, and strapped it to his left hip. His right hand hovered
casually over the zipgun on his thigh. He glanced at his wrist gage to check
his air. The readings said his system was doing its job. Riley and Ericca
pulled their visors down. This would allow them to see in the faintest of light
and would darken instantly should the need arise. The dimming Grenadier Nebula,
now getting further and further away, currently offered little light. If not
for the visors, electric torches would be their only option, and those would
quickly give them away.

Ericca raised her suit’s hood, glanced around to make sure
the way was clear then slinked to a nearby wall. She hunched low to peak past
the corner then disappeared around it.

Riley looked back across the ship for security’s sake then
ordered
Viper
to lock down before he followed his sister.

Large pipes ran some distance along the hull. Ericca ducked
under the nearest, then followed it to the hatch hidden between them.

Riley stayed close behind her and, from time to time, to
keep them safe, glanced back to secure their rear. As he did so, he
unconsciously kept his hand on his gun, his source of security.

Once at the hatch Ericca squatted and, without a word, held
out her open hand.

Riley knelt beside her and pulled a small Emitter/scanner
from his satchel. As if it were a surgical instrument he slapped it into her
palm.

She placed it next to the hatch and turned it on.

“This may take some time,” she said, and looked back at her
brother. She shook her head and frowned at what she saw.

“What?”

“You. Your issues with wearing the hood will be the death of
us.”

“Cut me some slack. The helmet’s cool, the hood is whack,
okay?”

She
hmph
ed, and sat down next to the Emitter/scanner
to keep an eye on its gages. While the device calibrated and formed an Energy
Bubble over the hatch, it gave her time to consider her brother. “Archer, I
know you want to create a look here. I know you want to look cool. But really,
out here? Who’s going to see?”

He shrugged and took a seat beside her. “A proper
cool
-itude,
sis, is all about frame-of-mind. If I look cool when people aren’t around then
certainly I’m cool-looking when they are.”

“Wear the hood.”

He scowled. “Come on.”

“There could be patrols walking the deck. The helmet
reflects light. Pull the hood up.”

Although he hated doing so, he knew she was right, so he
complied.

“Thank you.”

There were certain obstacles to overcome if they wanted to
get into this spaceship—
actually
any spaceship—let alone this “military”
spacecraft. If they had cut through a bulkhead or opened a hatch without the
Emitter, the sudden decompression would not only have set off alarms right and
left, but the out rush of air would’ve knocked them off the hull. To overcome
this the Emitter created an Energy Bubble to envelop the hatch much like the
barrier shield that covered an open cargo bay door or
Viper’s
cockpit.
Once formed the bubble would match the ship’s internal atmospheric pressure to
prevent the air’s escape when the hatch was opened. And just like a barrier
shield the bubble would allow them to pass through it unhindered.

“No guards beyond the portal, bro. Still waiting to get an
air pressure reading.”

“It certainly isn’t easy breaking into a military
spacecraft, sis.”

“Steel hatches
are
difficult to get through. And the
Confed Navy makes them even more so.”

That went without saying. Both of them knew that this type
of hatch was secured remotely by an encoded lock mechanism whose command
signal’s source was deep within the recesses of the ship. To bypass this Ericca
had to tenuously trace the signal back into the vessel to its origin, and
quietly trigger it without setting off any alarms.

The Emitter
slash
scanner, of course, was loaded with
Rachel’s, not Jordon’s, high-tech gadgetry, but Ericca didn’t trust it to be
foolproof. She believed nothing ever was, and that fact made her nervous. She
took a breath. Although this was its first field-test, she’d have to trust it’d
work. She took hold of the hatch’s handle, twisted it to the unlocked position,
and tugged. The hatch opened a crack. No alarms.

“You seem apprehensive, sis.”

“Getting in might be easy enough. My concern is that this
device will leave residual evidence that we’ve been here.”

“And if it does? If this ship’s sensors detect it later,
what do we care?”

“I don’t want to be discovered when we can least afford to
be caught.”

Riley grinned. “The devil you say? I thought you’d like
nothing better.”

Ericca rolled her eyes. Then she and Riley slipped through
the hatch and climbed down the ladder to the metal floor.

They soon discovered that it was dangerous and difficult
working their way through this enemy vessel. Guards were plentiful and the
course was long—but they managed to plant all five bombs, snip a few wires, and
get back out safely without being discovered. And all the while, Ericca
couldn’t get
Freefall’s
stealth ability out of her head.
Freefall
could turn invisible for short lengths of time. Hard on fuel consumption, but
good in a pinch. To vanish just as an enemy vessel locked its weapons on, and
then reappear at its back door made for great fun sometimes. A small stealth
device attached to her belt would be useful, but that kind of spy-gear only
existed in the minds of small boys. But still . . .

. . . who knew what Jordon Kori was capable of?

Back aboard
Viper
Ericca adjusted the Synthe-grav and
she and Riley settled down for a good night’s sleep.

“You know what just occurred to me, Ericca?” Riley asked
before he allowed sleep to overtake him.

“What’s that?”

“We could have used a couple of Captain Kori’s
holo-emitters. Scan a crewman, assume his—”

“Or her . . .”

“Or her identity, and walk around out in the open as him or
her. That would have been a lot easier.”

Ericca laughed. “You’re right. Holographically disguised, we
could have walked openly throughout the ship unmolested. When we get back we
gotta make sure Rachel adds one to each of our utility belts. Agent Riley Archer
. . . spy guy. Like that do you?”

He chuckled. “Ericca Archer . . .
the shadow
in their midst.”